where would I have been without Lithium? probably, homeless

Once I realized that, I stopped envying unmedicated people. I hope this drug is as effective in others as it is in me.

So by homeless I mean leaving in a motel for mentally ill people. That is how my county, god bless it, deals with patients who otherwise would have been homeless.

But I have a job and I am moving into a big apartment - knock on wood, not homeless. Both in part due to my excellent credit history and credit rating, which, in turn, are what I have thanks to Lithium. I will explain in detail, but let me warn readers from outside of the US that it is probably not worth your time reading, because this American game of credit history that we all are forced to play is, to the best of my knowledge, not something that as of yet has taken hold in other countries. Of course, I might be wrong.

So Lithium removes the urge to buy from me. Underneath, I have not changed a bit. Recently, I skipped a bit of Lithium to the tune of spending on services, before I realize that was going on. So the natural urge is there as strongly as ever, it is just completely suppressed by the drug. I have close to 100K in credit line from various credit cards yet I have just recently switched from tasty lattes to less than perfect instant coffee with milk in an effort to save money. Not manic behavior, right? But I know I have credit card debt (from the time I had to pay the divorce lawyer, had expensive and ineffective therapy all expenses I no long incur) to pay down, I made my first payment last week, and that instant coffee will help me in this direction.

I have a whole bunch of credit cards. Three American Express cards - on one, I carry a balance which has to be paid off beginning in October, one I use at Costco and on Amazon only, and the third is my main pocket credit card on which I get Delta miles ( a free ticket, eventually). I also have a Chase Visa card for the establishments that do not take AmEx, such as my fruit stand (American Express charges, I believe, 3% on each transaction which is why many small businesses cannot afford to take it). I also have a Discover card which I use to pay for my cell phone service. I have a Bank of America card with a balance which I started paying down last week. I think this is it. Why so many? Why not put as much as possible on the Delta AmEx to get a free ticket as soon as possible? Well, because it damages credit score. I went to a seminar several years back and I have read up online and I know the factors that go into the calculation of the credit score. It is better to have many cards and to use them all a little (less than 30% for sure) than to have one card and max it out. So for instance, my Discover Card that has a 10K credit line and on which I only put $80 for the cell phone service is a perfect example of good usage of credit. You have access to a lot yet you use a little. Without Lithium, I would not have had the discipline to use less than 1% of my credit line. Of course, I incur an overhead in managing payments on all those accounts, but after calling each credit card company and making the 16th of the month the due date on each, and setting up automatic payments at least for the minimum payment (now I am switching to full balance automatic payments but when I was on state disability, I could not afford it), I am in good shape.

My credit score is so high that it seems theoretically possible only for people with home mortgages and with lines of credit and with installment loans such as auto loans, because those are considered premium forms of credit and they contribute more to the credit score. But I somehow manage without them.

Why bother, would you say, if I cannot buy a house anyway? Well, it is a brutal world that values credit history above all. A company of my employer's caliber does not recruit people with bad credit histories (unless of course the recruits are fresh from other countries on H1B visas, but in that case they have NO credit history rather than bad credit history) - credit check is part of a background check. I look good on paper so I get hired.

My new landlord is very laissez-faire, he has not asked for employment verification or references, he just based his decision on the credit check. He said "You have excellent history, I am pleased". Well, I am pleased that he is pleased. So that is how people check if I am trustworthy (the landlord does not know that I have been late on rent and had to bring cashier's checks and that because of this history I wrote him 12 checks, put them in 12 envelopes, affixed 12 forever stamps and gave it all to my ex who will be mailing on time for the next year - big thanks to him).

Before Lithium, I used to buy half of online catalog of hanna andersson - an upscale retailer of very pretty children's clothing (clothing from Sweden, Denmark, etc.) My girls still have some stuff that has never been unpacked and now is both too small and too bright. Give me as much credit as I have now and take away Lithium and I will be in trouble.

What are the non-pharmacological means that have been suggested here to deal with impulsive buying? Living on cash, not carrying plastic, freezing your credit card to force yourself to wait until it defrosts hoping that the impulse will in the meantime go away. But that is essentially living without credit. How would I have built this excellent credit history if my credit card were not used at all (plus, all the trips to the ATM would have been inconvenient - it is much more convenient to carry plastic in my wallet)? Or as in the case of a frozen credit card, were used only sporadically? No, you have to have constant activity on your cards. I once had a Master card and I did not use it and it got closed by the card issuer. Use it or lose it.

So thanks to Lithium I have the basics - the place to live and the job. Thanks god! Thanks god for Lithium! For a medication that costs practically pennies, this is a huge monetary return!

I have complained about the thyroid medication due to which I cannot have breakfast upon awakening - I have to wait an hour. Well, when I think of the inconvenience of getting and carrying cash, the breakfast inconvenience pales in comparison. I am now posting waiting for the hour to pass. Nice solution.

Acne - the acne situation forces me to apply Tazorac diligently every night, lest I have a breakout. As a positive side effect, I have no wrinkles - Tazorac prevents wrinkles. I am bad at beautifying myself - for instance, I have long eyelashes and it would have been good to apply mascara to accentuate them, but the thought of using make-up remover nightly scares me off. So I doubt that I would have been applying Tazorac to prevent wrinkles alone. But now I have to. So acne is probably a positive rather than negative side effect of Lithium.

Weight - I used to be thin while on Lithium, size 6-8, very normal, so it does not cause that in me (Depakote does and I will try to get off it).

Losing words, slowness - as Venus points out, every once in a while everyone forgets a word, so I am too quick to attribute it to Lithium. Not a significant side effect.

And that is all. Not much to complain about, especially in light of the fact that I might have been homeless and unemployed had I not built this credit history that looks so good on a background check.

You might say that it is an artificial and unfair game and you would be right. It is especially unfair to recent graduates with significant student loans who cannot pay back the loans because they cannot find jobs and they cannot find jobs because they have bad credit histories. Very unfair. But it is a game that I am challenged with, and I play it so well, and Lithium takes the credit.

Again, I hope it is as drastically helpful to others.

So you get automatically offered credit card in the USA?

I got a debit card where I cannot go into red number and i would have to have special kind of account to be able to do that...

it's actually bit sketch to borrow here money "'cause I want". Yes, there are loan sharks, but those are evil... and well in many cases illegal.

I guess that's why never understood on how it's possible to spend so much while manic. My bank would send me big **** you once i reached a zero.

it seems the systems is exploiting people with bad urges, eh.

Lithium has been my missing "vitamin" for the last 11 years. Had I had it a year earlier I may have been still married. I don't leave home without it. Had side effects for about 2 years. Now, no. Never made me a zombie.

No, you are not automatically offered a cc, but it is easy enough to get one. And once you have a constant stream of income, very easy. The system clearly exploits people with bad urges.

You do not want to apply to too many credit card companies though, because each application creates and "inquiry" on your record and that counts against you. So it is at the same time good to have many cc, but applying for each additional one may have a negative effect, and you have to balance these two considerations in order to arrive at the best possible credit score for you. The same applies to asking for a credit line increase: if say Discover increases my credit line, my usage percentage or credit utilization ratio (there is an exact industry term for it but I am too lazy now to look it up) would fall which is beneficial for the credit score but the credit inquiry that the application would create is detrimental, and on balance I think it would be negative, so I do not apply for credit line increases.

Same here, had I had it earlier, I would have now had a lot more money than I do. And possibly still married, too, but money for sure. I am glad you do not experience side effects. And I, too, have never been a zombie on it. My only hope is that in the next 30 years something equally potent is discovered, because otherwise when I hit 70 - the age at which they stop prescribing Lithium, for kidney reasons or not, I am not sure - and start living on SSDI, I would be in big trouble. When I was in hospital, I met a woman in her early 70s who had lived happily on Lithium without a problem until she was taken off it, and then it was in and out of hospital with mania.

But it is too early for me to worry that far .

They will probably get something new by then. Specially if it's treatening to the senior bipolar population. Must be some studies out there as we speak. Hopefully they will find something even better!

Creative light, since I bore you out, I have blocked you because I usually deal with people who find me entertaining and there are plenty of such people, thanks god. So what are you doing on my threads? Isn't it inconsistent (to put it mildly) to ask me to stay away yet pop up on my threads? The blocking functionality works in such a way that I do not see what you wrote but I see the fact that you wrote something, and I find that fact extremely puzzling. You do not have to solve the puzzle, though, as I will not see your response anyway. The take-away message for you is to reciprocate the courtesy and stop reading me as I stopped reading you. Blocking is accomplished via what is called the "ignore list" - the steps are pretty self-explanatory. Then the site will automatically ensure that I would not bore you out. Works like magic.

Thank you for sharing your experience with lithium. My psychatrist suggested that instead of lamictal, that i try one of the "big guns" to treat bipolar. He mentioned lithium. I have just been so concerned about weight gain, acne and potential kidney damage, as I have already lost part of one.

Your experience seems positive. I am encouraged that you did not gain weight on it.

No, I did not, what causes weight gain in me is Depakote and I am now trying to live without it (not only for that reason but also due to hand tremor). And of course Zyprexa caused a HUGE weight gain but you do not seem to have symptoms that would warrant even entertaining the thought of taking Zyprexa.

I should add that I am sure Lithium controls other urges as well, it is just that they are more nebulous and it is more difficult to express the benefit I am getting in straightforward monetary terms.

I know this is unrelated, but I think that you would write an excellent column for a newspaper. Your reads are very entertaining! Just a thought...............

That is always such a welcome compliment as I am not a native speaker of English . Good night now!

I know you can't read me because you just told me, but I will take a minute for you and explain. I'm in your post being what is called "supportive", friendly etc because I do not have anything against you. I'm not in kindergarden! You did bore me however with always coming after me as if I were personally attacking you with anything related to meds/no meds. What I meant with stop was to just let that issue go away because it seemed we were getting unfriendly.. and it seems I was right because you blocked me. I still like you!

Lithium is my med. The one that works best for me. Yes, I turned into a Zombie for the first year, got tremors once in a while...but... I can´t see that I would function well without it.
In Europe they give it to elderly people but in very small dozes...
It is also said to be preventive for Alzheimer...so far so good.

My credit sucks and I can't get an apartment. They even check it for jobs these days. Its like america is hell.

Yes, I have also read about research on Alzheimer's prevention. In light of that it actually would have been a good medication for the elderly - what a shame that for other reasons it cannot be given or can but in very small quantities. Speaking of very small quantities, lithium naturally occurring in small quantities in municipal waters prevents suicide in communities that use those waters for drinking - the communities have lower suicide rates than population-wide.

Canada is also very heavily reliant on a similar if not pretty much the same credit system. I have bad credit.... so I am doing ok haha. Actually that is true, I have bad credit from years ago. Not that bad, but in my case I think it's actually a good thing, I can't really go in debt. And I don't really have an income.... see how that balances out.

Hamster that's pretty darn good! I am a bit envious of that, Lithium didn't treat me as kind. More like I kept forgetting to pay my bills on time, or the the right bills, or right amounts. I think you deserve just as much credit for your credit as lithium. But I am glad it was able to help you so much. I do think it is a pretty good med for Bipolar, it was always my first choice, it's too bad it has such a bum rap.

I totally agree about bum rap! When I was dx'd (incorrectly at first as II) in 2006, my p-doc gave me a choice of Lithium, Depakote, Tegretol. I was irrationally scared of the word "Lithium". I noticed that Depakote also reduces migraines and decided to kill two birds at once. Well, I killed only the migraines, and that to the tune of a huge weight gain and bad hand tremor. Depakote did absolutely nothing against mania, and in fact my worst spending happened on Depakote (the ****** doctor was oblivious to that fact). As a result, I got on Lithium only in 2009, post a suicide attempt that wrecked my life. But - I am glad I am finally on it.

Did not realize that Canada has pretty much the same credit system - you have credit history, credit score, credit bureaus, everything?

Yes, we have all that! Same credit model basically.

It is. It is a straight jacket, basically.

Anika, I will take partial credit. I did the legwork of calling every credit card company to switch my due date to the 16th of the month so that things are manageable. I did some work. But I do not do any work in terms of not spending. I really have no desire to buy things in quality any more. I get upset every time - and that is infrequently - when I throw something away because it went bad. Usually, I eat everything I buy. Before, I overbought food and wasted a lot. Now I shop in small quantities. I am not grandiose in how I spend anymore. But no self-restraint at play - I really do not feel like overbuying any more. The urge is gone.